Take Three: Atlanta

Atlanta: Season 1, Episode 4 “The Streisand Effect” (B+)

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that FX has renewed this show, along with Thursday night offering “Better Things,” solidifying its identity as a provider of semiserious mature comedies created by interesting people. This fourth episode led its characters to encounter far less danger than they did in previous installments, but there were still some more than moderately annoying things they had to deal with in their quest for continued existence and perseverance. Earn trading his phone in for nearly $200 should have been simple enough, but then we have Darius to get in the way of things by telling him that he could get him a whole lot more by trading it in for a sword. Earn’s reaction to the news that he would get his dividends in September was one full of frustration, and I much preferred Darius’ response to the whole thing, which was that they’re now friends. Earn is destined to experience minor misfortune after minor misfortune, and what would have happened had Darius not given him his brand-new phone to trade in probably wouldn’t have amounted to more than Van expressing disappointment in his continued inability to provide and be reliable. Paper Boi experienced a different nuisance in the form of the hapless, clueless Zan, who took to social media to start trashing Paper Boi after he refused to indulge him after his overeager approach. Watching the foul-mouthed kid get robbed after he delivered the pizza was a truly bizarre occurrence, and Paper Boi’s response was the right one: just get out and walk away.